Question by someone that needs help: What are the steps to troubleshoot a compaq presario laptop?
My laptop is suddenly not recognizing my ethernet cord :-(. When I right click the network icon(computer things with the red X) and click diagnose and repair it says a cable is not plugged into the network adapter “local area connection”. I live on a college campus so I don’t have a router or anything we just use ethernet cords. Help help help! Lol

Best answer:

Answer by Remalda L
just like diagnosing any other brand computer. pressarios are pretty reliable and of course LAN is faster and more secure than wifi, but less convenient.

try your computer and your cable on another wall jack. This will tell you if it’s a bad cable to your apartment or YOUR computer.

Use another persons laptop with YOUR cat6 cable. This will tell you if it’s a bad cable
Use another persons cat6 cable with YOUR computer.

If another persons computer works with your cable in your wall jack, the issue is your computer. reinstall your nic driver. It may be called broadcomm
go into dos and ping 127.0.0.1 and see if it times out
go into ipconfig and see if you get info including a MAC address. If you don’t get a reply, you may have to buy a new motherboard. The NIC is integrated on almost all but the most expensive laptops.

good luck
and good luck in school too!

If it’s bad (hope it isn’t) I’d make friends with a comp sci major. If he installs it for you it’ll cost you a hundred plus giving him an incentive 50-100). If you take it to a shop, it will be cheaper to buy a new computer. hope it’s just a driver issue!

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!